Sunday, 27 May 2012

THE BLUE CLIFFS OF DOVER

Been to the cliffs both days this weekend,only Langdon Hole on Saturday,but walked to South Foreland today.With temperatures soaring at home the cool easterly breeze on the cliffs was most welcome on saturday lunchtime and in the sunshine I found 5 small blues and another green hairstreak among the dingy skippers and orange tips.

SMALL BLUE

GREEN HAIRSTREAK

SMALL BLUE has a wing span of 25mm
This mornings walk to St Margarets was fairly uneventful with just a few whitethroats,a couple of house martins and swallows and a single blackcap on the cliff edge.The most unusual sight was a pair of greylags flying west with a barnacle goose for company.Yellowhammers have been fairly scarce this spring but there were four males singing today.

this one near the coastguard station

and at either side of Fan Bay

there was" a little bit of bread and no cheese"

Reading Tony Morris` blog the other day about LESSER BLACK BACKED GULLS,breeding in the area,well I believe they have been nesting in Dover for some time,this week there have been sightings on the roof of Morrisons,the old telephone exchange and the Dover Discovery Centre where one was seen taking nesting material to the roof despite the prescence of the plastic eagle owls,placed at great expense to deter gulls from nesting on the roof, memo to architect,they aint that daft!

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About Me

born and bred in Dover, educated at Dover grammar school, early interest in all sports , nature and steam trains. I lived very close to the railway line at Tower Hamlets. On leaving school I found a career in local govt as a building inspector working at Dover, Ashford and Shepway councils, retiring after forty years service in 2006. I played football in the kent amateur league for crabble athletic, cricket for dover cosmopolitans, and late in life discovered the joys of rugby playing for Dovers lower sides into my forties.
I have two sons Colin and Philip[packet]and am in a relationship with Cathy.
Birdwatching began seriously in my late teens when Spud Taylor introduced me to the song of the willow warbler , terns at sandwich bay, redshanks and snipe at stodmarsh and shelduck at nagden and apart from when rugby became all consuming I have been a birder ever since. Since retiring I have spent most of my time wandering around East Kent watching and now photographing birds and butterflies. I am a volunteer ranger at Samphire
Hoe on a tuesday where my claim to fame is finding a hoopoe in august 2009.